


Introspective Wonderings

by Broba



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Asexual Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-23
Updated: 2012-02-23
Packaged: 2017-10-31 15:35:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/345732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Broba/pseuds/Broba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Well, here we are. I had just finished "Vs." and I was on a high, the prompt... spoke to me, for some reason. Rose and Doc Scratch aren't a common pairing, but there was something about it, the prompter made me picture this calm, asexual relationship akin to a mentor and student. I also wanted it to be surreal and dreamlike, I hope I have hit the right notes.</p><p>Weeks later, and after posting this on the kinkmeme not a single response- so, I had no choice but to chalk it up as a failure. But, it was a failure that came from the heart and made me feel, I could bear a lot more failures like that. Needless to say, please do comment! I have no idea what works or doesn't otherwise!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Introspective Wonderings

Rose descended from the world of stars, and saw clouds flow and coalesce around her as she fell into the blue atmosphere. The ground rushed up to her like a shocking surprise, and when her feet touched down the grasses were gentle and soft under her toes. She looked around her in mild bewilderment. Just a moment ago she had been there with Dave, and all around her the horror of the  Green Sun- everywhere. Now, she was here. A luscious green countryside, but too regular and orderly to be anything other then a garden. A garden that must extend for miles, for she was on a low rise and could see some distance away. Atop a hill behind her the white sandstone bulk of a house with curling ivy crawling up the stonework.  
  
She felt as though she were insubstantial and weak as an idle thought left wandering when the thinker has gone to sleep, and she walked towards the house. As she approached the great front door opened, and a figure in a white suit of an old-fashioned cut stepped out. He had no head, instead there was a featureless white globe only. As he stepped towards her confidently and gave her a respectful little bow- for she know indisputably that somehow the figure was male- she had a suspicion that she knew this person in some capacity. With dreamy slowness she curtsied to him.  
  
"Hello, dear Rose. I'm very pleased to see you."  
"Am I dreaming?" She was straightforward about it and watched him closely.  
"Whenever are we not? Come, please." He held out a hand to her, and they walked towards the house together. His gloved hand was cool to the touch, but not cold. Close up, she could see that the gleaming surface of his globe was slightly irregular and pitted in places, such that the light reflecting from him was diffuse rather then sharp.  
"I don't believe any of this," she announced, "it isn't real."  
"I make no request that you believe anything in particular. As to reality, I would hardly be in a position to comment."  
"Where are you taking me?"  
"To afternoon tea, if you would permit me to be so bold."  
  
They arrived in the verandah without moving, in the instantaneous motion so typical of dreams, and sat at a white-painted ironwork table where he served her tea from and exquisite pot with chinoise dragons picked out on blue all over the china surface.  
  
"Who are you?" She sipped her tea after he added a little lemon and sugar, and sat opposite her politely.  
"Think, hard."  
"Scratch," she said, uncertainly, and the globe-head nodded slightly.  
"Doctor Scratch, if you like."  
"Am I really here?"  
Scratch sighed, an odd thing to see when he remained entirely motionless and inexpressive. "In a manner of speaking, yes."  
"What happened to the Green Sun?"  
"It's still there and quite safe, I assure you."  
"Am I dead, then?"  
"You are quite alive."  
"Then, how did I get here?"  
"Please dear Rose, drink your tea. You will find it quite good."  
She sipped her tea.  
  
The house was enormous, but quite empty except for the two of them. Scratch insisted on doing everything for her, it seemed. He was a very capable chef, and at dinner time she sat in the huge kitchen as he cubed raw potatoes to fry in a shallow pan with butter, to which he added a little garlic and pepper. He cracked eggs with care, using only one hand, and mixed them in with the potatoes and a little prosciutto to make a simple but filling repast. He did not eat himself, but he told her that it gave him no small measure of satisfaction to watch her eat.  
  
In the great wide dining room where they sat at a small table large enough for two, there was a great old clock high up on one wall. It was the only think about the house that seemed to have a life of it's own aside from themselves, but the hands didn't move.  
"They move, very slowly," he told her. "The clock will turn only once, and when the time comes it will ring the division bell."  
That was all he had to say on the subject.  
  
When the night came, there was no sunset but rather a dimming of the omnipresent light. He led her to a plushly appointed bedroom, and gave a little bow to her as she turned to bid him goodnight.  
"How long will I be here for?"  
"Not so long, in the grand measure of things."  
"What happens if I try to leave?"  
"The gardens are expansive, please feel free to go where you wish and enjoy them."  
"You know that isn't what I meant."  
He sighed again softly, and took one of her hands in both of his. It was the first time he had directly touched her since the morning. "Dear, dear Rose. In time you will understand everything, and you may then do as you please. Until then, would you trust me for just a little while?"  
She nodded with a little uncertainty, and then closed the door in order to go to bed.  
  
As every night passed, Rose dreamed and she began to remember more and more of what had happened. Scratch remained cryptic, but he encouraged her to explore her memories and remember. The house contained an enormous library and she was free to read any of the volumes there, although they seemed to be filled mostly with dense impenetrable texts.  
  
She sat in the windowsill of a wide bay window and watched Scratch in the garden. His coat was neatly folded over a lawn chair, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up above his elbows. He wore green braces with gold clips. He was hard at work in the garden, trimming back the bushes and doing his best with the weeds. She watched him labour for a while, and then on a whim she went out to him, carrying a glass of iced water. He straightened up as she approached.  
"Ah, I appreciate your sentiment dear Rose, but I cannot drink that."  
"I know."  
She dipped the corner of a napkin in the water, and gently ran it over the surface of his globe where she imagined a brow would have been.  
"Is that better?"  
"Thank you, that is quite a relief actually."  
"Why do you work so hard to keep the garden in order? There must be miles of it, you will never get to it all."  
"A body must find some constructive work to do, don't you think? Otherwise, what is there when we are gone?"  
  
Rose sat herself down underneath the shade of a tree and Scratch seemed to watch her intently, and silently. She mopped a little of the cool water over her own brow.  
"I don't believe that I am your prisoner here."  
"I assure you that you are not."  
"I was in the Green Sun, I was right there. I'm sure I entered it."  
"Is that so?"  
"I remember, at the last moment, I saw something out of the corner of my eye I think. Lots of things. They were horrible, and they were coming for me."  
"Rose," Scratch knelt to one knee in front of her and reached out to take the handkerchief and mop it over his globe, "those things are real, right now. I might not always tell you everything you wish I would but I will never lie to you, and I assure you that they may not ever have a place in a garden so neat and well tended as this."  
"Is that what you're doing? Keeping them away?"  
"You might say that."  
"Thank you."  
"You are most welcome, dear Rose."  
  
They walked together back to the house as the afternoon waned, Rose held his coat for him.  
  
The afternoons were long, but the light always faded away into a murky twilight. As time went on, Rose began to notice that the light was fading earlier and earlier in the day. She felt as though she was watching winter coming, but when the morning came it was always bright and hot as a summer. Scratch enjoyed cooking her a light porridge with a dollop of jam for breakfast. He had shown her how to boil down fruit and add sugar and pectin to make delicious preserves, they had made apricot jam, orange marmalade, raspberry and blackberry, and even a delicious chutney of apple and sweet onion with spices and herbs.  
"Rose?" He neatly folded his napkin and placed it on a little pile with others he was similarly preparing.  
"Mm?"  
"You have barely eaten, are you feeling well?"  
"I was just looking out at the clouds. The sky seems to get a little greyer each day."  
"Well then," he stood up and inclined his head slightly to the left, it was a gesture she had come to associate with a warm smile, "would you like to do something about it?"  
  
They went out into the garden, further from the house then she had been before. They were in a wide open field that sloped gently downwards into a valley basin that rose again sharply across from them to a forbidding rock peak. Scratch raised his arm, and she followed to look up at the heavens.  
"Make the sky better," he said simply.  
"How do I do that?"  
"How do you tell your hand to hold a painting-brush? It is the same."  
Rose squinted into the sky, "if it's all a dream, then why not."  
  
She waved a hand uncertainly, and Scratch chuckled a little, immediately apologising for his rudeness.  
"I said the sky, you're concentrating on your hand."  
"Show me then, if it's so easy."  
Scratch stepped neatly up behind her and delicately pinched her wrist between fingers and thumb. She took a sharp breath, he was normally studious about avoiding physical contact. He raised her hand as though wielding a delicate tool, and made a brushing motion.  
  
Above them, the clouds boiled and parted silently. Fat dollops of yellow and red spread into the azure of the sky like coloured oils dripping into a bowl that they were somehow hanging above. Rose couldn't help but to laugh, the sheer delirious joy of the colours expanding and blending across the sky was almost more then she could bear. The scintillating glistening clouds were glowing from within, the light was deeper and brighter and richer in quality then anything she had ever seen.  
"Well done, dear Rose" said Scratch quietly.  
  
Rose took to going out into the garden with him as he worked. When the light was poor on some days, she would paint him a sky of wonderment to work by as he tended his beloved garden. In the evenings together they might read in silence, or enjoy complex games of chess. He taught her variations of movements she had never considered, and especially he taught her that every piece had a value of its' own that could be brought to the fore in the correct circumstances to change the fate of the entire game. She was an excellent student. In the dining room, the great clock turned, and the hands moved imperceptibly but absolutely.  
  
One evening they were enjoying sherry by the light of a roaring fire. He would allow her to have a medicinal glass now and then, and he kept a glass for himself though he never drank. In the corner, an ancient but well-loved victrola span gently and filled the air with a warm golden fall of notes.  
  
She looked at him curiously over the rim of her glass. When music was playing he always seemed to slow down, the sound of any song seemed to carry him away with ease.  
"Scratch?"  
"Yes?"  
"What's happening here, between us?"  
"That's quite a forward question."  
"I feel the need to ask it."  
"I am enjoying your company, dear Rose."  
"And I am enjoying yours."  
"Thank you, that is all I wish."  
She smiled.  
  
The days came to be of shorter duration then the night, and Rose could not keep the darkening night away forever no matter how hard she tried. By mutual assent, their forays into the garden became more restricted, and then never left sight of the house. Nor did they speak of their fears, or why the solid stone walls seemed to comfort them less and less as time went on. Outside seemed less verdant, the grass was a darker, greyer green and the trees had begun to wilt as they finally deigned to obey the law of the seasons.  
  
Rose was shaken from her sleep by a loud, pained cry. There was nobody else there, she didn't hesitate but ran directly to the room Scratch used, charging in without knocking. The room was as neat and well appointed as she might expect, having never been in there before, and the bed looked as though it had not been slept in. There was a yellow oily light coming from under a door, and she pulled it open to a small bathroom, where Scratch was bent over the sink. His braces had been slipped from his shoulders and his shirt was ruffled where he had pulled the collar open roughly. He was grasping the edges of the sink, and shaking. Rose pressed a hand onto his back.  
"Scratch?"  
"Rose, dear Rose," his voice was so soft and so modulated that she knew he was using all of his effort to control himself, "I don't want you to see me like this, if you please."  
"Scratch, no,"  
"Please return to your room Rose, this is really quite rude, quite rude," it was the closest that he had come to raising his voice to her. Out of respect that overrode her fear she turned and left.  
  
She caught a glance in the mirror in front of Scratch when she walked away, she hadn't meant to look but she couldn't help it. There was a smear of red across his white globe, and she wasn't sure but she thought she had seen a tiny hairline crack.  
  
Things were never quite right with him again. The next morning he behaved toward her as though nothing had happened, but she could tell that he had been somehow diminished. He walked less and less, and soon he would consent to going no further then the verandah to sit in a lawn chair with her and stare out listlessly into the garden. The cracks were spreading, though he didn't mention them. He looked like his old china teapot, there had developed a criss-crossing web of fine grey cracks in his surface, and he seemed less and less lustrous. The garden was dying before their eyes as they came out day after day. Weak though he was, he insisted on being there, if he couldn't do anything about it then he would at least grant his precious flowers his presence and watch them dying with dignity.  
  
One day Rose looked out of the window in horror, and saw that a grey mist had descended. The garden was enveloped, she could barely see any distance beyond the house, and she knew in her heart that were the mist not there, she would see no garden any more.  
  
She heard him calling her name softly, and walked down the stair with numb, uncertain feet to the dining room. Scratch was there, stood alone in the middle of the floor with his victrola beside him on a tall wooden stand. He was wearing his immaculate white suit again and she wasn't sure when she had last seen him so perfect and dapper. From a distance, his globe was perfect, white and untouched. He carried a cane in one hand that he rapped once on the wooden floor, and gave her a bow as she approached him.  
"Scratch?"  
"Look there, Rose."  
He pointed with the cane and she turned. The clock had turned, without her even noticing, and the hands were approaching midnight.  
"What does it mean?"  
"Soon, the division bell will ring."  
"How soon?"  
"Very soon now, I think."  
  
He raised a hand that shook slightly to the victrola and lowered the needle onto a turning record, and the room was filled with a lilting guitar and then the languid, blue, tired and wonderful voice of Billie Holiday performing "It Had To Be You."  
  
Rose looked at him, and tears were coming. He set down his cane and took her hands, and she moved close to him, letting herself be guided by him in a slow dance.  
"I didn't know you could dance, Scratch."  
"A gentleman is ready for any social occasion."  
"It's all coming to an end, isn't it?"  
"It is the tragedy of dreams that they must end, as must the dreamers."  
"Is this all really nothing but some dream I'm having?"  
"Perhaps it is my dream you are in, had you thought of that?"  
She laid her cheek against his chest, "I don't want this to be some dream."  
"Ah, dear Rose, a dance is nothing more then the greatest illusion. Two people can come together, and move in time with each other for a while, and then part as though nothing had happened at all."  
"Why is this happening?"  
"You know why, Rose."  
"You brought me here to protect me, from the things that were coming for me."  
"Correct."  
"And you kept them away from me, didn't you?"  
"Yes."  
"Why would you do that?"  
"And now you are asking a better kind of question," Scratch sighed, "I've had my time, dear Rose. I have done all I was put here to do, and I like to think that I have done it well. I am left nothing more then the broken fragments of an eggshell now, and the bird has flown,"  
"Don't say that!"  
"Listen to me, please. There isn't long. Rose, there was very little of me left, with very little time left. But I saw you, and it occurred to me that in the last flicker of time left to me I might like to not be alone."  
"So you brought me here?"  
"We brought ourselves here. Have I been of some service to you, Rose?"  
"You have been far more then that."  
"I am glad. I have only ever wanted to be thought useful," He shook suddenly, missing a step, and Rose had to hold him up for a moment. He was far lighter then she imagined.  
"What happens when the division bell rings?"  
"Then the last of my time is done. You no longer need me Rose, I am loathe to admit it but you are entirely capable now of going on without me."  
"I'm so sorry, Scratch,"  
"Don't be, dear Rose. Have a bold heart now, and go on in your life. This time we have shared, in my perspective, is no more then a blink of an eye. But when I reach whatever place I am heading towards, I think I will remember you the best of any of it."  
  
Behind them, the hands of the clock converged and with a great dull drone the division bell rang. The walls around them splintered and cracked, and the floor buckled under them. The victrola fell and smashed to pieces against the ground, and Rose thought she could hear herself screaming. A wild fast wind took up and filled the room with a maelstrom of broken glass and shards of wood, pieces of their life together jumbled up and span about in it madly.  
  
In her arms, she saw Scratch, her Scratch, become grey and dull. The cracks spreading over him now began to separate and splinter, and she felt his clothes slacken and go limp in her arms.  
"Scratch!" She screamed his name aloud, "I love you!"  
"Thank you for saying so," came the voice, as he finally broke apart and flew to pieces around her like nothing more then an old porcelain doll.  
  
Blackness threw shadows across the remains of the room as the house crumbled, and she saw one wall lit up in vivid green- the lurid glare of the Green Sun. She was returning, and perhaps it was as Scratch had told her, no more then the blink of an eye. She had kept him company for a time while he had died, and in exchange he had tended the garden and kept the nightmares of the dark away from her. Now, she faced the Green Sun and knew that she had all she needed. The gardens were in her mind now, she made her own sky and filled it with sunsets. They would find no purchase in her, and she would thank him every day of her life for the gift of flowers.


End file.
